Superintendent's Last Week, Solar Farm Hearing Top Week Ahead

By Mike Deak

It’s summertime and the living is easy.

Other than worrying about electric bills overheating as air conditioning whirls, regretting that you didn’t lose enough weight before summer arrived and listening to the cicadas sing the joys of heat and humidity, there are a variety of things going on in Bridgewater this week.

This is the last week that Bridgewater-Raritan Superintendent Michael Schilder will be on the job before his retirement becomes effective at the end of the month. He will be taking vacation time until then.

The Bridgewater-Raritan Regional Board of Education will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 11 in the Harmon V. Wade Administration Building Conference Room on Newmans Lane. The board will enter immediately into closed session to discuss interim superintendent interviews and the evaluations of the superintendent and board secretary.

The board may take action.

Also on Thursday night, the Bedminster Land Use Board will determine whether KDC Solar’s application to build a solar farm on Country Club Road about a half-mile from the Bridgewater border is complete. 

The application, which has drawn organized community opposition, calls for the construction of a 49,000-panel industrial-scale solar power plant on the residentially zoned Kirby Farm. The farm would power only Sanofi-Aventis on Route 202/206 in Bridgewater. Power generated by the solar panels would be transmitted through a tunnel under Route 287.

The Bridgewater Planning Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday has been canceled due to lack of quorum. The next meeting will be Monday, July 22.